What's this all about Vicar?(Formerly, Why do we have to do this Sir?)

The musings of an ordinary sort of God-bothering curate and educator from Yorkshire, God's own country.
Sometimes I think I am in a parallel universe as I ponder why some Christians seem so wilfully theologically illiterate.

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." Philippians 4.19

"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Philippians 2.12

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Those who eat my
flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living
Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live
because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that
which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will
live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at
Capernaum.

When many of his
disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
61But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to
them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man
ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh
is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But
among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who
were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me
unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples
turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do
you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we
go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that
you are the Holy One of God.”

Today we continue with Jesus’
discourse on The Bread of Heaven and this passage is either the preacher’s
dream or the preacher’s nightmare because there are so many themes that can be
explored. There are two themes that particularly struck me which I’d like to
share with you. The thing that hit me most forcefully about this Gospel passage
was the theme of a crisis of faith. Given, too, that the crisis of faith comes
as a direct result of religious teaching, I also think it’s a passage which is
subtly calling on us all to be more willing to argue good theology and to
challenge bad or lazy theological thinking.

We can all
be theologians.

When many of his disciples heard it,
they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?

I don't know
about you, but sometimes it's easier for me to identify with the crowds who
misunderstand and question Jesus than with Jesus himself.

I think this
is one of those times.

To
understand what I mean we have to recall just what Jesus has been saying here and
throughout the sixth chapter of John's Gospel: that Jesus, for instance, is the
bread of life; that he provides the only food which truly nourishes; that he
gives us his own self, his own flesh and blood, to sustain us on our journey;
that we are actually to eat the flesh and drink the blood in order to abide in
him. These are, indeed, hard words: hard to hear, hard to understand and for
many, hard to believe. For many they are stumbling blocks to faith, as they
were for some of Jesus’ followers in this passage.

Are we really all that different? I mean,
which of us has not at one time or another wondered whether we have got it
wrong about God? People of faith don’t find ourselves immune to doubts.

Something of
this sort appears to be happening in today’s Gospel. Earlier in this same
chapter we read about how Jesus has fed five thousand people with five small
loaves and two small fish. This had amazed the crowd so much that “they began
to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’” Jesus
responds with an extended discourse on bread from God and the assertion that he
is himself the Bread of Life, using words that associate himself with the God
who had revealed himself at Sinai as “I am who I am.” “I am the bread of life,”
Jesus has already declared to them.

That’s some
claim: “I am the bread of life.”

And many
felt that he had crossed a line with those words. Some around him had already
been grumbling because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ Their
discontent was clear when they said, ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from
heaven?’”

No wonder,
then, that many of those following Jesus now desert him. And at this point we
need to be careful how we characterise them, because it's always tempting to
write off those who gave up on Jesus as people too stupid or lazy or unfaithful
to believe. But John calls these people not simply "the crowds," as
in earlier passages, but rather "disciples."

Disciples.

The people
in today's reading who now desert Jesus are precisely those who had, in fact,
believed in him: those who had followed him and had given up much to do so. But
now, finally, after all their waiting and watching and wondering and worrying,
they have grown tired, and they can no longer see clearly what it was about
Jesus that attracted them to him in the first place, and so they leave. We are
so attuned to his words we probably find it hard to understand how offensive
Jesus had become to his hearers by this point, with the things he was claiming.
“Does this offend you?” Jesus had asked.

“Yeah,
actually it does.” Was, effectively, their response and they turned their backs
on him.

What just
happened?

What a contrast:
the crowd witness the feeding of the multitude but within a short space of time
have given up on the man responsible because his teaching was too hard. For
some, the religious implications of Jesus’ words were a step too far. What we
see here is that the teaching of Jesus is itself, not just the stepping-stone,
but sometimes the stumbling-block to faith.

The problem
was that this wasn’t the Jesus they wanted: they’d backed the wrong horse.
Their understanding of Kingship and his were incompatible. They wanted the
warrior king, the political leader who would lead them to victory over the
Romans and Jesus was offering them quite a different sort of kingdom: The
Kingdom of God.

“Pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die!”
Some of them no doubt thought. “We want action now.” What good were all these
words when contrasted with the expectations of what they really wanted to from Jesus?

Jesus then
turns to the Twelve, his inner circle, and asks them whether they, too, wanted
to leave him. After all, if significant numbers of others were disillusioned
with Jesus, surely those closest to him must be having the same sorts of doubts.
They knew him better than any of those who had left. So what did they think?

“Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Said their chief spokesman,
Peter, in words so significant that they have been incorporated into the
liturgy of the church.

Now, given
that the Gospels make it fairly clear that there were many times when the
Disciples failed to understand what Jesus was telling them, it’s probably fair
to assume that they weren’t feeling much more enlightened than the others by
what Jesus had said. Remember, we come to passages like this with the benefit
of hindsight. We’ve heard the stories; we’ve internalised the meanings we’ve
heard them that many times ….. but try to imagine hearing and trying to make
sense for the first time of some fairly abstract and intractable ideas. You
might even have got a handle on what Jesus was saying, but the implications …
the implications. “Really? Have I got this right? Did he just say what I think
he said?”

These
disciples were also plagued by doubt and fear. They suffered at times from
pride or a lack of courage, and they, too, eventually deserted Jesus at the
very time he needed them the most. So if
they aren't any better than the rest of Jesus' followers - then or now - what
is it that sets them apart? The Disciples surely didn’t respond as they did
because they understood the words that much better than those abandoning Jesus.
But they knew one other thing that made all the difference in the world and
that made them say that he had “the words of eternal life.” That difference was
this: “We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Those leaving had
neither come to know or believe this. For the Twelve, it was the one thing that
made them stay, even though they carried on failing to grasp the meaning of
much of what Jesus was saying. Perhaps for some of them it wasn’t until Peter
articulated it that they were forced to confront this for themselves.

This man was
introduced to the readers of this Gospel as “The Word made flesh.” “The Word
was God and he was with God in the beginning.” In him, John asserted in those
opening verses, resided life: the “life that was the light of men.” Perhaps the
disciples couldn’t have spoken that eloquently when Peter spoke up for them
all, but they stuck with Jesus because at some point they recognized the divine
in him.

O.K. So
we’ve looked at the Gospel story and analysed it.

So what?

It has to
have a practical application or we’ve rather wasted our time. We have to turn a
piece of religious history into something we can work with in our own lives;
that has the power to touch us, or we’ve missed the point of being here.

Well, this,
according to many Christians down the ages, is what makes what we are doing
here this morning so important, so vital. Because each week, through the
preaching of the Word and the sharing of the sacraments, we're offered again
the words of eternal life which Peter and the others recognised. We're offered
again, the chance to encounter Jesus and his living Word. Through preaching and
through the sacraments, Jesus' real presence is revealed in our world, we
receive the promise that Jesus is, indeed, the bread of life and we are pointed
to the place amidst all the mess and ugliness of this world, that we can look to
and know with confidence that we can find God there, in Jesus, offering us
again the promise of forgiveness, acceptance, meaning, and life.

The 16th-century
reformer Martin Luther argues this point. "God is present everywhere, but
does not wish that you grope for him everywhere. Grope rather where the Word
is, and there you will lay hold of God in the right way."

The trouble
is that we have to keep reminding ourselves of this. We are so far removed in
time from these events that, however much our imaginations might be grabbed and
transported back through time during the readings and the sermon; however much
our intellect and soul engage with the spiritual meaning of the words - the
theology - coming here week by week can very often seem a tired routine. Perhaps
we don't renounce or desert Jesus openly like those followers in today’s
passage, we just don't make the extra effort to get to church quite as regularly,
or we reduce what we've been giving, are more reluctant to support church
events, we give up on prayer, we find different priorities and other calls on
our time until, in the end, we’re just like those in today's reading: turning
our backs and leaving.

Considering
the difficult times, the times of doubt, the times of misunderstanding, the
stale times in our pilgrimage of faith, other preachers at this point might
remind us of all God’s blessings and encourage us to consider what God has done
– and continues to do - for us. Well, true as that most certainly is, it never
quite works for me. It seems a trite refuge when things don’t feel right in
your spirit. I don’t necessarily want to count blessings. I’d rather struggle
with the problem.

Those other
disciples deserted Jesus because his teaching was a stumbling block to their
faith. We hear this all the time. “I and the Father are one.” Jesus goes on to
tell us later in John’s gospel but in my Religious Studies classroom I am
repeatedly told “I can’t believe that Jesus is God. How could one man have
created the universe?”

“Man? One man. Right… ” And thereby we might start
discussions about God’s transcendence or the Trinity.

And so,
unlike the first group of disciples in today’s reading, we aren’t satisfied
with our initial reaction to what we read and hear. We spend some time looking
at the reasons people give, their stumbling blocks, for not believing in God.
We examine them, we analyse them and then we look at alternative perspectives,
a bit like Peter did.

“Actually,
not all Christians take that view because …..”

“But many
Christians would disagree with that viewpoint. They would say…..”

Then there
are the misunderstandings of what Jesus says that are the stumbling blocks:

“I can’t
believe in God. Look at Jesus’ teaching on abortion and homosexuality.”

These are real stumbling blocks for some people.
That Jesus doesn’t actually have anything to say about either issue tends to come as a surprise. Does that come as a
surprise to you?

People
believe some very strange things about God; about Jesus, and what they believe
is often a stumbling block to their faith, and when they express it, to the
faith of others. It is a shame, then, that much of it is ill informed. If you
aren’t sure about that, spend some time looking at the statements of American
politicians and evangelists in the run up to their election. It has been said,
rather unfairly perhaps, that the Church of England is the Conservative Party
at prayer. In America, something which passes for Christianity is the
Republican Party at prayer and it’s not a Christianity - in some of its
expressions - that many of us would recognise. Often what it proclaims is a
stumbling block to the faith.

In the same
way that ignorance, misunderstanding and false expectations caused some of
Jesus’ would-be followers to turn their backs on him in today’s Gospel, so it
is today, but very often the stumbling block for Jesus’ would-be disciples now
are not the words of Jesus but the words of other Christians.

It’s not the
same because some other people have agendas and don’t necessarily speak with
the mind or authority of Jesus.

“Does what I
say offend you?” Jesus asked his followers. Perhaps some of Jesus’ latter day
followers could do well to adopt that mantra for themselves.

So a
practical application for dealing with stumbling blocks to faith?

Well, count
your blessings of course, but if it’s of any help at all try to think more like
Peter. Don’t be satisfied with an inadequate answer. Don’t assume that what
you’ve understood is the meaning that was intended and leave it there. Dust off
and examine your own position on things.

Are there
alternative perspectives you’ve not considered? Perhaps it’s time you
considered them.

Are you sure
that what you think is the teaching of Jesus or the tradition of the church
actually is the teaching of Jesus or the tradition of the church on any given
topic?

What type of
Christian is espousing that view you’re listening to? Are you generally in
sympathy with such people?

Is what
they’re saying related to issues of salvation? If not, in all conscience, can
there not be more than one viewpoint?

Ask yourself
the question: “Who would I rather have put words into the mouth of Jesus? The Gospel
writers or Iain Duncan-Smith?

Perhaps in
our spiritual lives we do need a bit more of:

“Actually,
not all Christians take that view because …..”

“But many
Christians would disagree with that viewpoint. They would say…..”

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to
me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I
am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus,
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have
come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among
yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I
will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And
they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the
Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is
from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has
eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the
wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so
that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from
heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will
give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be
hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus’ promise to his followers then and now is a challenge:
what truly brings meaning and wholeness in our lives? Do we shape our lives
around what perishes or what endures? Do we will build our house on the sand or
on the rock?Do we build it on Jesus and
if so, what is our understanding of who Jesus is? (Because today’s passage is a
call to understand Jesus.) Not Jesus as prophet, teacher, healer or miracle
worker, although he is undoubtedly all those things, but Jesus as God.

So let’s have a look at this “I Am” saying of John’s Jesus:
“I am the bread of life.” John uses his phrases and theological ideas very
carefully and deliberately and without a little understanding of that
background, modern readers like us are likely to miss really important
meanings.

Yes, of course we can understand this statement at its
literal face value – Jesus provides everything we need and provides it
generously and in abundance and we in the wealthy west tend to find that to be
largely true. Those who live elsewhere in the world might have more cause to question
that assumption. Who’d be a Syrian or Iraqi Christian right now? That
interpretation of Jesus’ words doesn’t really ring true for them – and for many
others, so there must be more to it. Not to have a deeper awareness of what
John is doing here would be to miss a very important point indeed.

Firstly let’s have a look at a single word – not one that is
in this passage: Bethlehem, the place of Jesus’ birth. Bethlehem means
"House of Bread." (In Hebrew, beth = house, lehem = bread

Let me take you back further, to the Exodus. The God of the
Old Testament, the God of the universe calls Himself I AM. "And God said
to Moses, I AM WHO I AM . Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I AM has sent
me to you."

Do we really think John’s use of the same phrase on Jesus’
lips is a coincidence?

Just to underline the point, John’s Jesus uses this phrase
not just here in “I am the Bread of Life” but seven times in total.

Does anyone know what the other “I Am” phrases are?

• "I am the bread of life" (6.35)

• "I am the light of the world" (8.12)

• "I am the door for the sheep" (10.7; cf. v. 9)

• "I am the good shepherd" (10.11, 14)

• "I am the resurrection and the life" (11.25)

• "I am the way, and the truth, and the life"
(14.6)

• "I am the true vine" (15.1; cf. v. 5)

So the original Jewish reader of John’s Gospel would have had
to have worked very hard to miss the point here. “I Am” the very words the God
of the Hebrews used to name himself. These “I Am” statements must be the way we
see and understand Jesus.

The Jesus who explains himself by way of “I Am” is saying nothing less than that he speaks not
just authoritative language, and specifically prophetic language but that he is to
be seen as the representative and mouthpiece of God himself.

Let’s just think about that for a moment.

When Jesus speaks he is speaking as God’s representative.

That should make us stop and consider very carefully all the
statements of Jesus recorded in the pages of the Gospels and act upon them
accordingly.

If we simply did that what agents of change we could be in
God’s world.

This is, in effect, the summary of Jesus ministry and it is
deeply personal, referring as it does to human yearning which Jesus will fill –
and it will be universal because it “gives life to the world” (v33).

So, in prophetic fashion he acts as spokesman of the One who
sent him, and as dispenser of the divine Spirit. Those who hear his words are
invited to believe not only the speaker, but the One who sent him. As Jesus has
already told us in chapter 5: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my
word, and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life”.

We need to recognise that this is as true today as it was
then.

The first of the "I AM" sayings, in John’s Gospel,
then, is "I AM the bread of life" (6:35). This statement is found in
the passage which follows the feeding of the multitude. Jesus says to the
crowd, "Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures
for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (6:27). Here Jesus
is building up to the key statement and is leading the crowd to the point where
they might recognise his divinity and come to faith.

The two go together: recognising Jesus’ divinity is the start
of faith.

For those of you interested in how the very words and grammar
of the Bible work, the definite article before the word bread indicates the
fact that Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the one who is the bread of life. I am THE
bread. Not SOME bread. Not SOME OF THE bread. Not Any bread. THE bread.

The bread of life also points to the satisfying nature of
Jesus as we can see in the phrase, "never be hungry … and never be
thirsty." Jesus alone supplies the spiritual needs of his hearers: this is
not about mere physical hunger, where bread leaves people dissatisfied and
wanting more. In fact this idea can be applied in a wider spiritual sense where
other approaches to God leave the seeker ultimately empty: a direct challenge
to those who are already seeking. Jesus is making a plain statement about his
Heavenly origins here: in the following verses Jesus refers to a descent from
Heaven and explicitly states that “.. all who see the son and believe in him,
may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day”.

This is not about food: let’s be absolutely clear.

This is literally about life and death, “ I tell you, whoever
believes has eternal life.” he goes on to tell them.

In these sermons, I often talk about the challenge to each of
us about what we do with Jesus’ words. Well they don’t come much more
challenging than this do they? Here is a man who is telling us that he IS God
and he has already used one of those special signs of his to show us that: he
has fed the multitude out of next to nothing.

That’s the sort of challenge that grabs you by the scruff of
the neck and demands a response, and that response can’t be “whatever”.

What are we going to do with this Jesus? Or perhaps we should
personalise it more: what are you
going to do with this Jesus, as I have to ask myself what I am going to do with him? This is the very question that John was
asking his readers: those Jews who had not yet come to understand who Jesus
was. That is the function of this Gospel and its challenge remains the same, to
convince its readers of the divinity of Jesus.

But being convinced is not the full response: mere assent to
the divinity of Jesus is not enough. I have to do something with that assent. I
have to make it personal. I have to make it mine. I have to enter into it.

And so do you.

Otherwise we run the risk of being one of the nay-sayers and
chunterers Jesus encountered in this passage: “Is this not Jesus, the son of
Joseph and Mary who we know?” Who does he think he is? Always cynical; never
quite ready; demanding more proof; more information; buying time; putting off
making a decision until all the doubts are met - which, of course, they never
are.

We follow where the Holy Spirit, who enables faith, leads. “No
one can come to me unless drawn by the Father” Jesus tells us. Well, we’re
here. The Father HAS been drawing us. We are here and the time is now.

Look again at Jesus’ words. Does he say, “When you’ve got it
all worked out in your head?” No. Does he say, “When you’re good enough?” No.
Does he say, “When you’ve proved yourself worthy by doing this or that?” No. What
does he say? “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of
this bread will live forever.”

We are here and the time is now.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, I am coming to know and
understand you more deeply. Help me to see that you are more than mere prophet,
teacher, healer or miracle worker. Help me to recognise that you are God and in
recognising you as God, help me to follow you as a true disciple. Give me this
bread always.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

After this Jesus went to the other
side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept
following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus
went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover,
the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd
coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these
people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going
to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each
of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother,
said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But
what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.”
Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five
thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he
distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they
wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the
fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up,
and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they
filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they
began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

When Jesus realized that they were
about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the
mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got
into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus
had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was
blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking
on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to
them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat,
and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

I don’t know
whether it is something to do with the street I live in but this time of year
seems to me to be characterised by the smell of barbeques.

I must be
deeply anti-social or I have some other personality defect but I don’t find
chasing paper plates around someone’s garden in the teeth of a gale, while balancing a cup of
indifferent wine and avoiding ketchup stains and salmonella, a recipe for
unbridled fun.

Today’s Gospel,
though not exactly describing a barbeque on the Galilean hills, tells of Jesus
meeting the needs of his hungry followers. When I was thinking about how best
to approach this reading I had a look at a book by the theologian Canon Dr.
Jeffrey John called “The Meaning in the Miracles.” He wittily relates how as a
schoolboy two of his teachers had approached the miracles in contrasting ways
and this really resonated with me because I had a similar experience when I
first started teaching. One of my colleagues, Mr. Forest, a Biology teacher
embodied the literalist or fundamentalist approach to scripture where
everything was to be taken at the plainest level of meaning and must have
happened exactly as it said. His response to this miracle would be to say “Well,
it just goes to show that Jesus is God, doesn’t it?” Doubting that a miracle
story happened exactly as it was recorded was tantamount to doubting the
divinity of Christ.

Mrs. King,
my first R.S. Head of Department, on the other hand, took the reductionist
approach, wanting to “demythologise” the miracle accounts to reveal the morals
within the stories. In this case the moral to her was that when Jesus fed the
five thousand, he and the disciples shared out what they had and their example
encouraged others who had been holding back their own food to share theirs too.
The “real” miracle was when everyone discovered the joy of caring and sharing
with others.

She referred
to him as a snake-handling Baptist and he referred to her as a wet, liberal
Anglican.

I didn’t sit
with them in the staffroom.

Life’s too
short.

While their
approaches seem diametrically opposed, they were in fact quite similar in the
sense that they both treated the miracles as straightforward descriptions of
events: they concentrated simply on what did or did not happen. Dr. John, on
the other hand, concludes that the real nature and purpose of the Gospel
miracles is found in the depths and dimensions of meaning found in the account
and these passed both the teachers by completely.

The problem
with Mr. Forrest’s approach where miracles simply exist to prove the divinity
of Jesus is that it can say very little else about the event because it either
rejects or simply doesn’t understand any symbolism at the heart of the stories.
The problem with Mrs. King’s approach as a call to greater charity is that it
hardly sounds like good news and certainly not a tremendous demonstration of
God’s free, miraculously overflowing generosity to his people.

What I
discovered, before I gave up on them and went and sat with the Maths
Department, was there was no middle ground between them. For where two or three
are gathered together in my name….there will inevitably be an argument. (To
paraphrase Matthew 18).

But I
digress.

This was the
day Jesus was trying to get away from the crowd. Jesus crossed the sea and
climbed a mountain just to get away and get some time for prayer. He often took
some time out, insisted on getting some quiet time; some prayer time. Jesus
modelled for us that no matter what you're involved in, you¹ve got to make time
for God, time for reflection and time to listen to God – a good learning point
for us all.

Well, on
this particular day, Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee and climbed up a
mountain; he’d sat down to catch his breath, looked up, and can you believe it?
Here they come. The crowd had somehow found their way to Jesus: here they came
scrambling up the mountain to be with Jesus.

So, let’s
look again at the story and, two thousand years down the line we don’t
instantly recognise the subtext as the original listeners and readers would
have, and that diminishes our understanding of the Gospel. There are so many
layers to the miracle stories.

Now in this
passage notice that John tells us the crowd “saw the signs.” This would have
had Mr. Forrest and Mrs. King arguing straight away, so let’s be clear. In
John’s gospel, miracles are signs that point beyond themselves – to God. Every
time Jesus performs a miracle he is saying something about God and about
himself in relation to God. The miracles are not important merely because this
or that person is healed or because Jesus changes water to wine or whatever.
The miracles are signs that point to the reality of who Jesus is. Yes the crowd
gathered for healing, but they kept following him because of the signs, even if
they didn’t yet fully understand the implications.

Perhaps the
most obvious theological emphasis of this feeding miracle is to tell us that
Jesus is the new Moses. Even with a sketchy knowledge of the Old Testament most
people are likely to remember that Moses had done something similar with the
manna in the desert. Like Moses Jesus crosses the water into the desert, sits
the people down and feeds them with miraculous bread in such abundance that
there are basketfuls left over. Much less obviously, because this Old Testament
story is perhaps less well known, Jesus’ actions also recall Elisha. Some of
the details of the feeding stories reflect an incident in 2 Kings when Elisha
takes an army into the desert and feeds them miraculously with a few loaves.

Taking Moses
and Elisha together, the story seems to be hinting that in repeating what Moses
did, Jesus is fulfilling the Law and, in repeating what Elisha did, Jesus is
fulfilling the Prophets. Whatever else this feeding miracle is intended to
teach us, it also reaches us that Jesus is truly the one whom the Law and the
Prophets foretold.

Some
commentators go further: the words and actions of Jesus over the bread are
exactly the same as at the Last Supper. The association with Moses and the
Exodus here, in what we are told was the Passover season, points to the new
Christian Passover, the Eucharist.

These are
the signposts which point to Jesus’ divinity and to the readers and listeners
of the day they must have been akin to flashing neon lights which spelt out the
truths, hopes, patterns and meanings and modern relevance of the Old Testament
scriptures those elements represented.

“All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy). Only all too often
we have lost the key and therefore miss many of the nuances.

What should
this mean for us today? When we read the miracle of the feeding of the
multitude, how should we react? Well, perhaps the best response is the one
provided by scripture itself, the discourse of Jesus on the Bread of Life in
John’s Gospel. In John, it's Jesus himself who will become the real food:

“I am the
bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
This is the bread that comes down from Heaven so that one may eat of it and not
die. I am the living bread that came down from Heaven. Whoever eats this bread
will live forever.” Jesus understood all too well that if he let people claim
him as their physical provider, they would miss the reason for his coming. His
intent was to point them beyond their physical needs to their spiritual ones.
He wanted them to look not merely to bread, the most meagre sustenance of the
poor. “The bread you will eat”, John tells us Jesus said, “is my flesh.” In a
profound spiritual sense, Jesus wants his followers to understand that their
communion with him, their participation in his very life, will lead to new
levels of maturity and understanding.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

14King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” 15But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” 16But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” 17For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. 18For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, 20for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. 21But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. 22When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” 23And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” 24She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” 25Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” 26The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, 28brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. 29When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

I’ve a real soft-spot for John the Baptist. Not the personal
hygiene, the diet or the dress sense, obviously, but I like the fact that he
told it as he saw it.I admire the fact
that he took on the powerful and the vested interests of his day and pointed an
accusing finger at the corruption and religious hypocrisy that was rife. And
that’s a part of the story that tends to be overshadowed by the more familiar
part of his story: we tend to see John, “the voice crying in the wilderness”,
primarily in terms of his preparing the way for Jesus. What we might be less
familiar with is the whole backstory of his getting up the noses of the
religious and political authorities.

If you’ve switched off after hearing today's Gospel text I
don’t blame you. This is a terrible story. It's hard to say "Praise to
you, O Christ!" after such a story. Perhaps we should skip this story and
read the next one instead. It's a much more uplifting story about Jesus feeding
the 5000. Mark is a very careful writer. Herod's distasteful banquet segues
into the story where Jesus makes sure that everyone is fed. Mark wanted these
stories back to back because of the contrast between Herod’s banquet of death
and Jesus’ banquet of life. But I won’t steal next week’s preacher’s thunder.

So, hard as it is to listen, let's go back to Herod's story.
This feast was a very public state event – the King’s birthday celebration:
there may not have been a large crowd, but there was a select guest list of
important officials. Herod's wife, Herodias, was there, even though she
shouldn't have been because he’d stolen her from his brother: an unlawful
liaison that John had condemned and, as
a consequence, had ended up in prison.

Though Herod was a Jew, the power that the Roman Empire had
given him - even as puppet king - had replaced his sense of religious
commitment.But why did he give in to
this terrible request for John’s head on a plate? Wasn't it enough that John
was in prison? I should imagine alcohol may have played a part, combined with a
bit of self-indulgent self-promotion playing to the gallery, “Look at me. I’m
the King. I can do whatever I please. I have it within my power to grant
whatever you may wish.” Except that in reality he didn’t: maybe this Big-I-Am
routine was a way of covering the fact that as a Roman-appointed king his power
was actually very limited indeed, so where he could exercise power he was going
to make a show of it. And perhaps this is why he made this promise to his
step-daughter rather than someone who might actually call his bluff and ask for
something he couldn’t deliver. The silly slip of a girl was bound to ask for
something trivial after all, like a necklace. Well, Herod didn’t bank on
Herodias’s bitter desire for vengeance against the man who had held her up to
public ridicule. John’s death was Horodias’s idea, not her daughter’s.

Herod had liked to listen to John, which was odd indeed for
John preached repentance wherever he went. Was there something inside Herod
that remembered God's word, some spark of God that drew him to John's teaching?

Herod was upset by her request because he feared the crowd
beyond his palace gates, because they revered John as a prophet. He was also upset
because he was still drawn to what John said. But his guests had heard his
oath. How could he back down without losing face? Who knows what the guests
might tell someone higher up? So Herod gave the command, and soon the head of
John the Baptist was brought out on a platter, as thought it was the last
course of the meal. This was a very different banquet to the abundance of
Jesus' feast. Not twelve baskets of food left over, but a horrifying leftover:
John the Baptist's head served on a platter.

So, there’s our context. What are we to make of this?

John is often regarded as the last of the Old Testament
Prophets because he stands in that long line of men of faith who spoke the word
of God to their own generations. When we talk about “Prophets” let’s be clear
what we mean: this isn’t about foretelling the future. The Prophets of the
Bible were the outspoken critics of their day, speaking out against all sorts
of abuses meted out by the rich and powerful, deliberately or by omission,
against the poor and the marginalised. If there was any element of foretelling
the future it was only in as much as they predicted the anger of God and the inevitability
of the downfall of the wicked as a consequence of their corrupt behaviour and
lack of compassion.

We look back on them now as some sort of Robin Hood type folk
heroes, but they can’t have been easy people to have been around.

Isaiah typically delivered a message few people wanted to
hear: “Come back to the ways of God you apostates.” Although, in fairness, he
also talked about the hope of forgiveness. Jeremiah was a relentless doom-and-gloom
merchant, challenging Judah’s moral decline – and he was persecuted for his
pains. Ezeikel, was another prophet who warned the People of Israel of the
consequences of turning their backs on God. How about Malachi? Let the wicked
be warned by the certainty of judgement. Amos: God is just and must judge
wrongdoing. Obadiah: retribution must overtake merciless pride. Nahum: doom is
to descend on the wicked.

So, there’s a theme: get it right with God and get it right
with your neighbour. Micah’s question, “What does the Lord require of you? To
act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” is echoed later
by Jesus, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbour as
yourself."

It costs to be a prophet: John wasn’t the only one who died
an unpleasant death as a consequence of speaking out and yet we are all called
to be prophets …. in some sense, and it’s a hard ministry to pull off: I think
of those high profile American and South African Christians who spoke out
against desegregation of the races. Well, they were on the wrong side of both
history and morality. Going further back, both in America and here, there was a
powerful Christian lobby against the abolition of slavery. The wrong side of
history and morality again.

Scripture has something to say about false prophets. Matthew
warns, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but
inwardly are ravenous wolves.” In Romans we read, “For such persons do not
serve our Lord Jesus, but their own agendas, and by smooth talk and flattery
they deceive the hearts of the naive.”

So, how do we discern a position on the moral and religious
issues of our day where we should feel compelled as Christians to speak out?
Well, the direction of scripture points to justice, inclusion, compassion and
equality. I’ve no doubt you’ve all heard the mantra WWJD? (What would Jesus
do?) It isn’t a bad mantra for a Christian to live their life by. We know of
Jesus’ compassion for the poor, the weak, the downtrodden, the powerless and
the marginalised. What would Jesus do/say/think about the suffering of
civilians in Iraq and Syria? And the West’s response to the humanitarian
crisis? What would Jesus do/say/think about welfare cuts to the most vulnerable
in society in the name of austerity? – And I mention that last one acutely
conscious that the prophets of the Old Testament were often not at all popular
when they spoke out. The Church of England published a critique of the Thatcher
government called Faith in the City. “Pure Marxism.” said Norman Tebbit. David
Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham spoke out during the miner’s strike. He
was vilified by sections of the press who mounted a smear campaign against him.
“Make him look a fool and no one will take any notice.” Our own Archbishop,
Justin Welby has spoken out against the banks and against corporate greed. That
same press has been on his case ever since. “Lefty clergy.” Pope Frances has
spoken on environmental issues. He has done so with full papal authority and
his influence will go far beyond the Catholic faithful. America’s Fox News has
described him as the most dangerous man in the world and suggested that he
should stay out of politics and concentrate on religion. After all, what does
he know about science? (Apart from his doctorate in Chemistry from Argentina’s
premier university. Let's not let factual accuracy get in the way of a good rant, after all!) Being a prophet doesn’t make you popular with the vested
interests of your day.If all that sounds like a party political broadcast on behalf of the Hard Left, it isn't meant to. We come from all colours of the political spectrum, I'm sure. My argument is about each of us speaking to our own peer groups and holding to account those who promote policies and strategies which clearly do not bring the Kingdom of God closer. It come as something of a personal revelation, but others ARE accountable to us in all of the spheres we inhabit daily. Sometimes people need to be reined in and told, not in my name.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran Pastor invoved in
the plot to assassinate Hitler and undoubtedly a prophet of his time: executed.
Martin Luther-King, a tireless campaigner against racial injustice and
undoubtedly a prophet of his time: assassinated. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El
Salvador, a tireless campaigner against political corruption and the crushing
of opposition parties in his own country and undoubtedly a prophet of his time:
assassinated – in his own cathedral, during the Eucharist.

Being a prophet’s a bit of a risky business.

So, where does that leave us?

If we accept that the arc of scripture bends towards justice;
if we take seriously the mantra WWJD; if we believe that the Holy Spirit works
in our lives to bring the Kingdom of God closer in small and incremental ways
perhaps we could consider to what extent we might need to “man-up” a bit. If
you are anything like me you’ve probably kept quiet when you should have spoken
out: spoken out against the casual racism, sexism, Islamophobia and homophobia
we encounter daily; kept quiet when politicians of all colours have said and
done things which clearly have not brought the Kingdom of God closer and when
we’ve known in our hearts that such-and-such a policy is clearly not
Christlike. Did we try to make anyone accountable? Should we have done? One of
the things about Christianity – and the thing that frightens the powerful like
Herod and Herodious – is that followers of Jesus are called to activism. How
else will the Kingdom of God come closer?

Me? Speak out? I’m not called to be a prophet! Well, let’s be
clear, none of us here are likely to be a John the Baptist, a Martin Luther
King, a Dietrich Bonhoeffer or an Oscar Romero, but the English Philosopher,
Edmund Burke is quoted as saying, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of
evil is that good men do nothing.” WWJD?

Thursday, November 27, 2014

You may have
been aware of a flurry of activity in the worlds of education and the media
recently as a long awaited curriculum review of Religious Studies has reached
its consultation stage. It is careful and detailed and makes a number of
recommendations: some teachers like it, others are less sure, but it comes from
a genuine attempt to raise the standards of RS in our schools.

There is
only one problem: the curriculum review fails to address the institutional
problems faced by RS in the school curriculum. I have been teaching Religious
Studies for over 30 years and throughout that time it has been a marginalised
subject: one not taken sufficiently seriously by successive Head Teachers,
governing bodies, politicians, OFSTED and, therefore, generations of pupils. "Sir,
why should we take this seriously when the school doesn't?"

At the heart
of the problem is the peculiar and unique status of RS on the curriculum. It is
not actually part of the National Curriculum and exists in all subject lists as
an add-on. This means that it is treated as an add-on in many schools. The
previous Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, made an active
decision to exclude R.S. from the Humanities section of the English
Baccalaureate, significantly marginalising it: not only has his successor,
Nicky Morgan, shown no enthusiasm for putting this error of judgement right,
she is on record as having advised young people that they should avoid
Humanities subjects because they do not lead to the best career choices.
Presumably this wisdom comes from her previous job as a Careers Advisor. Excuse
me? Oh, she wasn't a Careers Advisor? My mistake.

I am
assuming that the Curriculum Working Party believes that R.S. students are
being given an appropriate time allocation for studying the subject. If so,
they have been labouring under a serious misapprehension. Most of us who teach
R.S. have to contend with one lesson a week, while being expected to achieve
good GCSE grades. Other Humanities subjects, however, have two or three times
more teaching time allocated. It seems that this is the accepted order of
things in curriculum timetabling regardless of the fact that all the exam
boards expect all three humanities subjects to be taught at between 120 and 140
hours for a Full-Course GCSE. On the one lesson a week model Religious Studies
is allocated well below that minimum figure. Until R.S. is granted a level
playing-field in the allocation of curriculum time, curriculum development is
just so much hot air.

R.S. is
further disadvantaged because it is increasingly being taught by non-specialist
teachers: when I and one of my Specialist R.S. colleagues recently moved on
from a large high school the subject was left to be taught by the one remaining
specialist R.S. teacher and 12 non-specialists, often teaching to GCSE level
and often sharing groups between them. This is not uncommon. How can it be
acceptable practice? Again, if we are serious about R.S. being taught
effectively, schools need properly trained and qualified practitioners.

It is the
fear of many of us that we are watching a deliberate, managed decline and
further marginalisation of Religious Studies. Many schools now pay it only
lip-service on the curriculum, burying it in some Integrated Humanities scheme
of work or worse, allocating a couple of dedicated days in the school year to
R.S. projects, while excluding it from the taught timetable completely.

Those of us
who are concerned go round in circles, batted from pillar to post between Head
Teachers, timetablers, politicians and exam boards. They damn us with faint
praise, all assuring us that they value Religious Studies and that it is a very
important subject but no one is willing to be the one who takes actual
responsibility to say, “Enough is enough.” And make moves to do something about
it. If the Secretary of State for Education is seen, not only not to be
supportive but to be actively antagonistic, what hope for the future?

The irony is
that R.S. is one of the most popular subjects for GCSE uptake.

So, at risk of labouring the point:

1) R.S. has
been institutionally marginalised throughout the length of my 30 year teaching
career.

2) There
aren't enough specialist R.S. teachers.

3) Students
are not given enough time to adequately study the subject and gain a depth and
breadth of understanding.

Until these
inequalities have been addressed, curriculum reform is merely window dressing
and I have no confidence that things will improve in any way for our students
and teachers as a result of these proposed curriculum reforms: the primary
problems of R.S. are not being addressed.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

“When the Son of Man comes in his
glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his
glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people
one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will
put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will
say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I
was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me
clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited
me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you
hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when
was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you
clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of
the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he
will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into
the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and
you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a
stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer,
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or
sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them,
‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you
did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.”

May I be granted the grace to speak God’s word.

I was away last weekend at Vicar school and at one stage - to
do with nothing we were learning at all - somebody mentioned the ultimate
meaning of life- as in what’s the
answer? Quick as a flash someone came back with “42!” The person who asked the
question is in her twenties and looked blank – much, I see, as most of you are:
it must be a generational thing. In 1979 Douglas Adams wrote a book called “The
Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy” which was subsequently televised and has
recently been made into a film. Being of that generation I devoured it. It is
wonderful, funny, anarchic and bonkers in equal measures. In it there is a
computer called Deep Thought who, having been asked to answer the question,
“What is the meaning of life?” after seven and a half million years of
calculation and pondering, delivers the answer: 42. This, of course, completely
confuses those who were waiting for the answer and then Deep Thought suggests
that perhaps those who had framed their ultimate question might not have
thought it through.

Well, here we are at the Feast of Christ the King which
finishes the liturgical year: next week we start Advent and this seems as good
a time as ever to consider the point that when we're seeking ultimate answers,
how we understand the question matters.

So, what’s the question for today’s Gospel passage?

The passage seems to be about judgement, believing in God and
what each of us needs to do or display in our lives in order to get to heaven.
Is that what this passage is about? The problem is that the Gospels in general and
Matthew in particular don’t seem all that interested in Heaven and Hell.
Neither did the early church Fathers. Come the Reformation in Calvin’s writings
there are two paragraphs about Heaven and One about Hell: in the totality of
his writings. When the Bible talks about the Kingdom of God, the trend for
quite some time now has been to understand it as The Kingdom of God … on Earth:
God’s sovereign rule breaking through into the here and now.

If you think the question is “Am I going to Heaven? Will I be
saved?” Matthew seems to be suggesting that you have missed the point. At the
end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus laments that many people will call him
Lord, but only those who act upon his ethical teachings can be his true
followers. That’s quite a different answer to the question. What you're seeking
is probably not pie in the sky, but, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu says, pie in
the here and now. So maybe the question rightly asked is not “what happens at
the end of things?” but more like “what am I supposed to be doing right now?
What does Jesus want me to do? To be? How will my life be different if Christ
is King?” Certainly we should be asking whether we are sheep or goats.

Of course, at the Time Matthew’s biography of Jesus is set
this was a really pertinent question because of the ongoing theological and
political debate about who really was THE LORD. Was it the God of the Hebrews,
Jehovah, YHWH, or was it the Emperor in Rome? Well, those days are long gone
but the question remains, certainly theological and yes, political too: who is
the Lord? Jesus or something else offered and affirmed by modern culture? The
usual things people elevate as gods - power and influence, wealth, celebrity
and fame - are subsumed in the Kingdom of God by the supreme values of service,
love, self-sacrifice, and faithful community. Life in God's Kingdom is not
about self-aggrandizement, it's about renunciation. It's not about big words,
it's about little actions, often little anonymous actions. Life in God's
Kingdom is not about what we have or who we are, it's about what we do. It's
not about what the world values, but what God values.

This isn’t a revolutionary idea: in the Old Testament book of
Micah, “This is what the Lord requires of
you: to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” The
message is this: if we love God, if our values are God-values instead of the
world's values, if Christ actually is King, then we will love as God loves,
give as God gives, forgive as God forgives. If our values are God-values, we
can't help but live as Christ taught and in doing so we bring the kingdom of
God closer. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. told how he would like to be
remembered, and in doing so, he zeroed in on that ultimate question: If Christ
is King, what does that mean? “If Christ
is ruler over our lives”, Dr. King told his audience, “then my Nobel Peace Prize is less important than my trying to feed the
hungry. If Christ is King, then my invitations to the White House are less
important than that I visited those in prison. If Christ is Lord, then my being
TIME magazine's "Man of the Year" is less important than that I tried
to love extravagantly, dangerously, with all my being.”

Perhaps the feast of Christ the King is just the right time
for a personal spiritual audit: if we were to take a snapshot of our lives now
how are we doing? Ezekiel put it rather well, “This is the sin of Sodom: she had pride, plenty
of food, and comfortable security, but didn't support the poor and needy.”
Now that’s not what many Christians will tell us the story of Sodom and
Gomorrah is all about but they’ve clearly got it wrong if we accept what Ezekiel
is telling us. So in our personal audit perhaps we should be asking ourselves
where we are on the true Sodom scale of personal ethics. In Today’s Epistle St.
Paul commends the Christians at Ephesus for their“faith in the Lord Jesus and love
toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for
you as I remember you in my prayers.” These people are working out what their
responsibilities are as Christians to each other and more widely. And Paul
commends them for it because they were called to be a sign of the age to come
just as we are, the Kingdom of God.

We cannot avoid the recognition that what we are talking
about here is not just personal ethics. It has a huge political dimension. When
the Church of England published its critical report Faith in the City in the
1980s, members of Margaret Thatcher’s government dismissed it as Marxist
ideology and concluded that the church was run by a load of communist clerics.
The message was quite clear: the church shouldn’t meddle in politics.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the other hand noted, “When people say that the Bible and politics don't mix, I ask them which
Bible they are reading”.

Equally, St Teresa of Avila wrote in the 1500s, Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no
feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on
this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the
hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the
feet. Yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, no
hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion
on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

That should give us all pause for thought. Let’s look at
Matthew’s list again: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the
sick and the prisoner. It’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to see who
those people are in modern British society: they are mainly the marginalised,
the “other” upon whom we look down: the poor, the homeless, theasylum seeker or refugee, the immigrant –
black, Asian or Eastern European, the offender … but we are quite good with the
sick! What’s that? One out of six. My aren’t we doing well? And it’s not meant
to be an exhaustive list. We could add in attitudes to do with gender and
sexuality, with class, with size and weight, with education and so on. These
are political issues and the Religious Right, particularly in the United States
gets this so wrong. Did you know that you can be imprisoned in Florida for
feeding the homeless? Just listen, “Church leaders in Florida were preparing
for a second confrontation with Fort Lauderdale police on Wednesday over a controversial
new ordinance that bans them from feeding the city’s homeless.

Pastors from two local churches and the 90-year-old leader of
a long-established food kitchen were arrested at a park on Sunday, two days
after the law took effect, for attempting to serve meals to homeless residents.
Each received a citation threatening 60 days in prison and a $500 fine. Dwayne
Black, pastor of the Sanctuary Church, said he and church members would set up
their regular feeding station at Fort Lauderdale beach on Wednesday in defiance
of the ordinance. He said he expected to be arrested again and to spend the
night in jail.

“We have been feeding the homeless for a long time. It is our
calling and our duty to not let another human being go hungry. But now it’s a
crime to feed a hungry person,” Black told the Guardian.” The Mayor who
introduced this law, Jack Seiler, isn’t an Atheist but a regular member of a
local church.

An extreme example possibly but, without wishing to turn this
into a party-political broadcast, it serves, I hope to illustrate the Parable
of the Sheep and the Goats. As we listened to that report we will have pictured
the events. We will have had a range of emotions. I think we should keep hold
of those thoughts and feelings as we go back and re-examine our own attitudes
to the marginalised in society: the poor, the homeless, the foreigner, the gay,
the prisoner, the poorly educated, the African Ebola sufferer and so on and ask
ourselves again where we are on the new Sodom continuum. “This is the sin of Sodom: she had pride, plenty
of food, and comfortable security, but didn't support the poor and needy.”
We could ask ourselves whether, like Martin-Luther King jnr, we are loving extravagantly,
dangerously, and with all our being.”

How are things going to end? What happens after we die? I
don't know, and neither do you. But we do know the shape of the story a loving
God is writing. If Christ is King, we know Jesus waits at the end of that
story, that he will see us, and know us, and that if we have done what he taught
us, he will claim us as his own.

Our prayers for ourselves today should include the petition
that as we continue to grow to spiritual maturity we become the sort of
Christians who care for the poor and the needy, the outcast and the
marginalised, not because of fear of judgement and our place in the afterlife
but because it is the Christlike way to behave. It is the way of Christ the
King.

“God has called you for who you are. He wants you as you are for your uniqueness. Do not let others change you" (Archbishop Desmond Tutu to me, Sat 7th November 2009)

Blog Etiquet

This is to be a safe place for people to share ideas and views and to let off steam. It is to be a network for those with a similar world view, but others are welcome to comment subject to the following: I ask visitors to respect me and other visitors; not to hijack this blog for your own agenda; not to use its content to make mischief for me or any visitors: not to rant too much, that is my prerogative and to comment with a name, not as anon.

When I comment on religious matters, it is important that you understand that these are my views and do not necessarily represent the view of any denomination.

When I comment on educational matters and school life, all names have been changed to protect the "innocent."

If you are not as keen to hear the alternative perspectives of others as you are to assert your own, this may not be the blog for you.

About Me

Sir is a Curate, a former Doorman and former Religious Studies teacher. ("It's rubbish this Sir!"). He is a returner to Anglicanism following a period in the wilderness elsewhere. He sings with the Leeds Philharmonic Society - a choir with an international reputation. He would describe himself as being part of the Christian Left.